Increase Search Traffic | Traffic Building Strategies and Expert Tips

Web site traffic building is inherently similar to social networking. You can be the town nobody, but once word spreads about your friendship with the beloved mayor, your social status skyrockets. Suddenly, invitations to the inaugural ball and country clubs fly in and you have societal influence. Your presence is felt. People know your name. And there’s no reason for it other than your relationship with the mayor.

While extending your site’s name recognition will probably never earn you invitations to happening parties, link building strategies will elevate your standing in the online community. Securing endorsements from trusted sites is a fast-track avenue to increased respect from search engines, but at the same time the wrong ones can be detrimental. Remember, your page rank parallels your personal reputation, so shady connections can sink your site by mere guilt by association.

If you don’t want to purchase services from a link building company, here are five link building tips that will boost your page rank and decrease the likelihood of your being penalized for poor links.

• Link building farms usually don’t have the promised impact. Search engines generally afford those sites little value, so establishing a good number of positive links requires some time and energy conducting a diverse link building campaign.

• You don’t have to be a link building expert to recognize unsavory links. When considering submitting your site to a directory, take time to evaluate the sites already listed there. For example, let’s say you Google, “Des Moines Web Design Directories.” A number of results will appear, many having nothing to do with web design. After scrolling down some ways, you find one that looks good. You click through to find 30 or 40 sites listed there, a few of which have peculiar names like www.ambers-collection.example. So you go to Yahoo! and search this site’s inbound links by searching “link:ambers-collection.example." If the result is a few hundred links to pornography sites, you probably don’t want to be listed in the same directory.

• Content is king, so add content to your Web site as often as possible. Whether that content is a “Top 10 List of Midwest Attractions” or an article on bass fishing, other sites link to interesting content – not pictures and splash pages. If credible sites trust you as a solid source of information, they will link to your site often. You do have little control over who links to your content, but suspect sites are less likely to link to irrelevant information - there probably aren’t many questionable sites hunting for fishing articles.

• Join any relevant groups, clubs, or organizations that will link to your site. If your site is for a small business, join the local Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau so they link to you. Research local government resource sites, or see if there are opportunities to link to libraries. Search engines generally give the most credit to .EDU sites, so explore ways to get involved with local schools and education institutions. 

• Start a blog and begin posting on other blogs. Many bloggers pay regular attention to what other bloggers are posting on their site. If they appreciate your comments and explore your site, there’s a chance they will add it to their list of favorite blogs. This spawns more opportunities for other bloggers to find your blog, which can lead to you being added to dozens of “Favorite Blogs” lists.